Dench, Emma - Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian

Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: 'race-mixture' has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as 'multicultural'. Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other peoples, including descent-myths, history, and ethnographies. She explores the relative importance of sometimes closely interconnected categories of blood descent, language, culture and clothes, and territoriality.

Emma Dench Professor of Classics and of History, Director of Graduate Studies, Classics Department, Harvard College Professor   I am particularly interested in questions of identity (ethnic and other kinds) in classical antiquity, and I engage with the material and literary cultures of the Roman world, especially Roman Italy. My current research interests include Roman ‘imperialism’ and the retrospective writing (especially in antiquity) of the Republican and Augustan periods. Read more...